


Expectations

by antrazi



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural
Genre: Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-27
Updated: 2012-08-27
Packaged: 2017-11-13 00:19:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/497288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antrazi/pseuds/antrazi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To avert the apocalypse the IWC needs a special glove. To use the glove they just need to summon a special sword to their dimension.<br/>The Michael-sword is nothing like they expected</p>
            </blockquote>





	Expectations

**Author's Note:**

> Time-line Buffy: 10 years after Season 7 finale  
> Time-line Supernatural: Season 6, between "The Man who would be King" and "Let it bleed"  
> Written for SPN Gen Big Bang (MIni Bang)

Giles, Willow and Dawn stared at the object on the table between them.

They had a big apocalypse coming and the only thing that could stop it was this glove.

It was long, obviously meant to be a part of armor , and was made of leather and a few metallic ornaments. It looked absolutely harmless.

Fact was they couldn't even touch the glove with their bare hands.

Every Slayer who touched the glove ended up comatose for a few days.

From what they knew of the history of the artifact, for normal people it was worse by far.

Their problem was that they had a weapon they couldn't even use.

"So, what do we know about this thing ? " 

Willow sounded tired.

Dawn sorted her papers and showed them to Willow and Giles.

She was the Head Researcher of the International Watchers’ Council, better known as the IWC. She loved her work, but this been a long and frustrating search.

"The artifact has a very long and complicated Sumerian name which we translated to  _Rifle_ _’_ _s glove_ . Research requests that somebody investigate ~~ s ~~ how Sumerians could describe a rifle thousands of years before somebody invented them. We are researching signs of time travel in that era.

Back to the glove, it is meant to be used in combination with something called the Michael sword."

Giles looked up from Dawn ’ s papers detailing the name of the artifact.

"That sounds vaguely familiar."

Dawn nodded and pulled some illustrations in front of Giles and Willow. 

Pictures of an angel in midflight with a flaming sword in hand, battling against others.

"The Michael sword is the sword of the archangel Michael. As in, right-hand man of the Judeo-Christian god."

Okay, this was different. There had never been anything to indicate that this god and angels even existed.

Willow was the first to actually be able to sort her thoughts accordingly.

"If the glove can only be used in combination with this sword, we can assume that there are angels somewhere. So, where do we find this sword?"

Dawn looked up from all the papers and books she’d pushed to Willow and Giles for reading.

"According to our information, angels and everything that  ~~ it ~~ implies really exist. They’re just not here.

As far as we understand it, there are simultaneously different realities and different dimensions to our own dimension and reality.

Some are very different from ours, some are nearly the same.

The part of the multiverse angels belong to is so vastly different from ours that beings who dimension hop don't even go there."

That was certainly interesting and something they had to reflect on later.

"Do you have an idea how to find the sword somewhere in a part of the multiverse demons consider unfriendly?"

Dawn smiled. "We hoped you could find the sword through its link with the glove. Considering the amount of distance , we thought if you threw in a vial of Key-blood you would have the juice to pull the sword through."

Willow thought about it, considered the amount of energy she would need for something like that.

Giles furiously cleaned his glasses. He knew they needed the sword, but they didn't have any idea if Michael or somebody else would be attached. And they needed somebody to wield the sword and glove.

"One moment, we won’t do that without a few precautions. We need to do that in a heavily guarded room with a few Slayers around. Faith is here at the moment, so we can ask her group for protection. And after we get the sword we can test to see if it really reacts differently in combination with the glove."

The younger women nodded. Perhaps it sounded a bit paranoid, but that was what kept them alive more often than not.

# #

Faith stood in her place, her slayers in their designated places, and Willow sat on the floor, foreign letters scribbled around her.

The senior slayer knew that the letters had been written with Dawn’s blood to give the whole procedure more power. Directly in front of Willow was a bit of space where the sword would appear.

Somehow no one in the group really expected to happen what did happen.

# #

One moment Dean was in the car driving with Sam beside him, the next he was beamed to some place he didn’t know and nearly fell over a woman sitting directly in front of him on the floor.

It looked like they summoned him. How was that even possible? He wasn’t a demon

Without a second thought, he went battle ready and assumed position against the armed women around him.

# #

"Stop!"

Giles’ order stopped everyone momentarily.

The Watcher looked back to the wards they had put around the room for protection. Nothing was disturbed or broken.

He mustered the guy next to Willow. He looked human, not that it really told them much. Age wise he was in the same category as the scoobies. But the most interesting thing was that the guy didn't seem to have a sword with him. He was armed, yes, no question, but he didn’t have a sword on his body.

"Everybody lower their weapons." 

The slayers followed his order and lowered their weapons.

The new guy changed from an aggressive to a defensive stance. Not perfect, but good enough for the moment.

"Hello. My name is Giles. I can assure you we didn't plan on bringing you here, this has been a mistake."

"I'm not sure this was a mistake. Hi, I'm Faith."

Giles didn't even dignify Faith with an answer. She had the tendency to go for anything male and/or good looking. The person before them fit both criteria.

"We just have to understand what we did wrong and we will send you back to your home dimension."

"A different dimension? OK." He didn't seem that disturbed by the news.

He casually put his gun back, but didn't let any of the potential threats out of eye shot. 

"I'm Dean. And I was just on my way to eat something. Do you have any food? I don't think I can wait till you find your mistake."

A loud and impressive sound from his stomach made clear that he wasn't joking.

Dawn nodded automatically. "Come with me, I will take you to the cafeteria. By the way, I'm Dawn."

Faith followed closely behind Dawn and her new prey. 

# #

Sam saw that his brother had vanished from one second to the other.

He stopped the car before it could crash against something and slid over to the driver’s side.

One second after that his cell was dialing Dean’s familiar number.

Nothing.

Sam’s next call went to somebody different.

"Bobby, we have a problem."

# #

Dawn smiled a little as Dean ate. Not only could you see that he enjoyed eating enough that it seemed indecent to watch him, he easily ate the amount a slayer would be proud of.

Faith just grinned. 

Dean didn't even seem to realize that he was the main focus of most of the people in the cafeteria. After his after-slaying-plate (extra greasy, indecent large portions, lots of proteins) he ate his helping of pie with lots of whipped cream and smiled wide.

Dawn decided to tell Giles that it was not a good idea to leave a guy that looked like that with such a smile alone around estrogen central. She was sure Faith would be happy to look after him. Hell, she would do it herself in a heartbeat if she had the time.

"So, tell me, what did you try to get out of my dimension?"

Faith jumped in before Dawn could answer "You are pretty relaxed hearing that you’re in a different dimension."

He nodded. "Well, it’s not my first trip. My brother and I were sent to a different dimension before. Since magic didn't even exist there, it wasn’t easy to get back.

So, you know about magic, I don't have to pretend I'm somebody I'm not, better than last time."

It certainly explained his non-reaction to where he was. And he knew of magic, that made everything easier.

"Is everybody in your dimension aware of magic?"

Dawn enjoyed his deep, rough laughter. "No. The supernatural world is something only a few people believe in. It’s surprising how much normal people can ignore in the name of denial."

Dawn smiled automatically. Apparently Sunnydale Syndrome was not exclusive to their dimension.

"We tried to bring a specific sword here. There is this being who wants to bring the apocalypse. The only way to stop it is with this special glove. But the glove can only be used in combination with the Michael-sword and without it we can’t use our only working weapon."

Dean didn't let anybody see how disturbed he was that he wasn’t here by mistake, he was here as a weapon, even without them knowing.

They had summoned the right guy. But somehow he had hoped that with him never becoming an angelic vessel that dubious title wouldn't matter anymore.

"Perhaps we should tell Giles and your witch that they can stop trying to find their mistake." He enjoyed his coffee: black, hot, extra strong with a little dash of cardamom and hazelnut. The nice, older lady who supplied him with the food told him it was the way the researchers liked it.

"Why?"

"Let me introduce myself: My name is Dean Winchester. I'm the Michael-sword."

# #

Faith couldn't help herself; she had to laugh a little. There was Giles and Red trying to send him back, while at the same time ‘eye candy’ was the answer to their problems.

Of course, they had always assumed that the sword was a real sword, not once did they think it could be a person. But then, Dawn alone was a good example that it could be just a title. She was  _The Key_ . And this guy was  _The Sword_ .

Giles cleaned his glasses.

"So, you are the Michael-sword?"

Dean sighed. "I'm not really a fan of that title. My name is Dean Winchester."

Winchester. Rifle’s glove. Winchester’s glove. Everything made so much sense, now.

"Why do you have that title? We thought it meant a physical weapon."

"You’re not completely wrong. I take it you never met an angel?"

Willow shook her head. "They don't come to our part of the multiverse. The only thing we have about them are legends."

"Lucky you,”their guest mumbled to himself.

"An angel in its natural state is the size of the Chrysler building, with a few heads and pairs of wings. Humans can't withstand the sight of them. There are a few people that can understand them talking, but believe me, you don't want to hear them if you don't have the ability."

The little geeks in Willow, Giles and Dawn committed everything to memory. When else could they get an account on angels?

"What happens to a human who sees them?" came from Dawn. The Researcher in her wanted to grab something to write.

"Your eyes burn out of your sockets."

Okay, definitely not a good idea to meet an angel.

"To operate on earth and interact with people they need human bodies.

These humans have to come from certain bloodlines to be able to hold an angel. The angel then possesses the human, just with the difference that the human has to be willing to give them their body.

The difference with archangels is that while they can possess anyone of the correct bloodline like normal angels, their grace can only be contained by true vessels, humans that are specifically born to be the vessel of an archangel. If an archangel has to make-do with a different vessel, this human won’t last long. The grace burns them from the inside out till the body can’t contain the archangel anymore."

"And that's you?"

"Yes. I'm the True Vessel of the archangel Michael.

The only thing it brings you is angelic plotting against you and a shitty title."

"And if you die? Will it go down the bloodline to the next?"

The question was logical for Willow, Giles and Dawn. It was a bit like how the original slayer line worked, just without the blood connection.

"Michael can go down the bloodline for a temporary fix. But a true vessel is just born once. If I'm dead and they need a permanent body for him , they have to resurrect me."

OK, shitty deal.

Before anybody had the opportunity to say something the man took the glove and inspected it directly. Giles, Willow and Dawn gave each other triumphant smiles when the glove didn't harm their guest.

"You said this thing was meant for the Michael-sword, not Michael?"

He took off the flannel and tried the glove. They all looked fascinated as the fastenings closed itself as if by magic. The gray leather fit perfectly.

"Yes, it was very specific. Why, is that relevant?"

Dean opened the first fastening and the whole glove opened up again, allowing the limb freedom again.

"Because I think nobody ever thought this thing would be used"

"Why do you think that?"

He showed them the metallic ornaments.

"These signs are Enochian. Angel chicken scratch. I can’t really read it, but I recognize a few of them as warding against angels. As in, the glove is for the vessel without the angel.

It’s just, it wasn't planned for me to be in this state. According to all the prophecies and machinations of heaven and hell, I should be either dead or a meatsuit for Michael."

"And therefore not able to use the glove."

Very interesting.

Faith, who had been quiet the whole time, snorted. "At least it will be a total surprise when we get Deano there to use the thing."

The hunter put the question back in waiting position in his mind.

"Tell me something about whoever wants to end this world."

# #

Sam drove back to Bobby's place. It felt wrong to drive the Impala without Dean by his side.

The whole time he thought about it he came back to one answer

_Castiel_

Who else had a tendency to just zap Dean to places without a warning? Sam didn't know why, now that they knew Castiel was working together with Crowley.

The hunter didn't even think as he took his cell and scrolled down to the number of the angel. He waited for Cas’ customary socially awkward voice mail speech to finish before letting his anger out.

"Cas, I know that since you're buddies with the king of hell, you think rules don’t apply to you anymore and you can do whatever the hell you want. But to vanish Dean out of the car like that?! The only good thing about this is that I know Dean is bitching at you at the moment, demanding to be brought back.

Fuck you, Cas!"

He stopped the call and concentrated on driving. He reminded himself that despite everything that happened, Cas never meant to harm Dean in any way.

# #

Cas listened to his voice mail and looked at the little piece of technology in confusion.

Vanishing Dean out of the car? What was Sam talking about?

For a few moments he contemplated the idea that Sam's wall broke and the human went insane as expected.

But perhaps Dean really was gone. There were possibilities other than him.

And he still considered the Winchesters to be his responsibility.

Somehow he didn't think Sam would appreciate him phoning back, not with his irritated voice.

Since he couldn't find Sam on his own , Bobby's would be his best choice 

# #

Dean played with his glove. It was strange.

He never considered this "Sword" thing as more than just a title and his vesseldom.

But it had to be more, some aspect of it, at least.

Because the IWC gave him all the information they had about the glove. And he had read what happened to normal people who touched it.

Was he perhaps some kind of Squib? He didn’t have any supernatural powers of his own, but perhaps he should have had them through genetics?

Who knew if everything Sam had done had been the demon blood? Perhaps some of those abilities had really been his, just activated or amplified...

And a part of him would never admit to describing himself in Harry Potter terms.

He put the glove on and moved his hand experimentally.

The leather fit snug against his skin, but had enough give that it didn't disturb him in any way.

There hadn't been any explanation as to how this weapon worked, just that it was meant to be wielded by him.

Guns had always come natural to him, but he had no idea how this thing worked.

Without thinking about it, he copied the move of his brother, hand open and out, ready to push energy outward or focus demonic presences.

Not only was there no reaction, he also didn't feel anything different.

Perhaps he needed a demon to try it out on? Or on whatever it was meant to be used against...

He looked up when somebody sat across from him.

Willow, the Wiccan that had brought him here.

She put a coffee before him and carefully prepared her own tea.

"I don't think we thanked you for doing this for us. You know you don't have to."

"Yes, I have to."

He drank his coffee, hunter and witch both thinking about the coming battle.

They had decided to go in with just a few Slayers, a magic user and Dean as a surprise attack.

They didn't know how the glove would work and needed to keep enough forces some distance away as a second line.

Dangerous, but it was their only shot.

The creature responsible was completely different from anything the Scoobies ever saw before.

Nothing harmed it and it laughed at their attempts at stopping it.

The attempt to get him via magic had ended even more abruptly.

They needed all the help they could get.

# #

The changes in hell were still... unsettling to Castiel.

Yes, hell had been horrific and grace scorching, but this eternal waiting of the denizens was depressing even for an angel.

On the positive side of things, a soul needed a lot longer to change from hellbound to demon through this process.

And Castiel knew for a fact that not everything about the old hell had been changed: The eternal waiting was reserved for standard souls. The big sinners still got the whole traditional hell package, torture and brimstone included.

It was interesting what it did to demons, these creatures who had mostly come to integrate the torture into their very nature, to be denied everything and forced to stand in line with the not-yet-transformed souls.

In its own way this was even worse for them and a part of Castiel admired Crowley's creativity for even thinking of it.

Still, after opening the senses of his bonded grace he knew that Dean was not in hell.

Neither in the waiting line nor in the classical dungeons.

It wouldn't have been possible for Crowley to ward the human enough had they been on the same plane.

So, not hell.

Who else had the capability and would have the audacity to kidnap his personal human?

Not Raphael, had the archangel done something like that he would have gloated the moment he had him and they would have heard of it had the Righteous Man landed in Heaven.

No, somebody else.

# #

"I'm surprised to see you here, brother."

Balthazar drank expensive champagne and looked to the scantily clad people lounging at the pool.

In spite of him being a dominion angel, a soldier of heaven, this war business was not something that came natural to him. Drinking at a bar and planning to debauch somebody sounded like a lot more fun.

While he had chosen his side in this war and worked for Castiel, he still found time now and then to indulge in his hobbies.

Now that he had given the weapons of heaven up, Raphael was not personally interested in him anymore.

It rankled his ego, but made his existence so much easier.

"I'm searching for Dean Winchester."

Of course, everything was about the human.

"He was taken from this plane of existence. I can't find him."

Okay, this was interesting. Somebody who could do something like that could be of interest for their war effort.

Was this a potential ally or a potential enemy?

Balthazar realized that Castiel thought he had taken the human. The idea alone was insulting.

"I don't have him, brother."

He offered his glass to the other angel, but he was already gone.

# #

Cas thought about other possibilities.

Who would have the interest in taking Dean and at the same time the capability of warding the human against him?

Yes, Dean had the sigils that warded him against angels, but Castiel's grace had kind of bonded to Dean's soul in hell, the hand print scar on Dean's shoulder being nothing more than a manifestation of that bond.

He couldn't use it during his slow fall and even with being reinstated he would need more power to work around the sigils than was wise with Raphael still running around, but he needed to do something.

The angel remembered something else. It wasn't something the Winchesters had talked about, but during his invisible visits with the Winchesters he had seen a new book Dean kept in his duffel, directly with his hunting journal.

There hadn't been any words printed on the green leather so he didn't know what it was about, but it was a start.

# #

Sam looked unhappy as Cas went through the duffel to fish an unknown book out.

The way they lived they didn't have a lot of privacy, their duffels were hands-off in normal situations.

But this wasn't a normal situation. And Sam would do anything to find a clue to his missing brother’s whereabouts.

Sam opened the book and frowned. Long and complicated words he couldn't even read, followed by phonetic transcriptions.

What was that and why would Dean need it? 

Cas needed just one phrase to not only recognize the language, but also the phrasings.

Incantations dealing with fairies, the language was Gaelic.

There was only one reason Dean decided to study up on Fairies: He could see them.

When had the human been to Avalon and why hadn't Castiel known about it?

It was rare for humans taken by the Fae to get back, so when had that happened and why had they let him go...

Or maybe they didn’t really let him go, after all. Maybe they had taken him back?

It would certainly explain Castiel's problems in locating him.

"Your brother went to Avalon. When was he there?"

Sam gave him a puzzled look as he held the unfamiliar book in his hand.

"I don't know what you’re talking about. Avalon?"

Bobby took the book out of Sam's hand.

"That was a few months ago. They sent him back within hours, too aggressive for them." Probably a good thing that Dean's instincts ran amok when that happened. Bobby had read up on fairies in addition to giving Dean the book to memorize how to banish them.

The setup had screamed of the Fae of the Unseelie Court, nowhere a human wanted to end up.

If they had taken him back, he had a real problem.

The angel took that in and flew away without prior warning, leaving the human ~~ s ~~ standing there.

Time for a trip to Avalon.

# #

It was interesting, going on a hunt with that many people.

Dean was used to having to think of one, perhaps two or three other people. 

Now he was in a group with eight Slayers and one Wiccan, who all had the order to keep him alive – and to keep a distance from his gloved hand.

Strange didn't even begin to cover it.

At least he was away from that strange watcher, Andrew.

The guy had the same unsettling lack of personal boundaries as Cas, coupled with an extreme case of geekdom.

It would have been funny had Andrew not focused on him.

Other than the manpower, another great thing about the IWC was the simple fact that you were always surrounded by females. All types, all ages, all knowing about the real world out there, all capable and the majority of them going out night after night and kicking demon butt.

It was a dream come true.

If he weren't still mourning the loss of his relationship with Lisa and Ben, he would be in paradise. A real one, not the hell of eternal re-runs.

Faith even offered him an in-depth demonstration of all those slayer muscles.

If he ended up being stuck in this dimension, he would most likely take her up on that offer...

# #

The place where they would have their little showdown was pretty unremarkable. The same generic building that could be found anywhere in the world.

From one second to the next he felt the familiar air displacement

# #

Faith pulled her weapons at the figure that had materialized before them.

A guy, blue eyes, dark hair, rumpled suit and tie, trench coat.

"Cas? Why are you here?"

Dean stared at the guy and his reaction made clear that he knew him.

Did that mean that he was safe and she could stop pulling her weapons on him or should she put him down before it was too late?

It would be good to get some information here.

"I have no intent to harm you, Faith Lehane."

Okay, that was creepy, the whole complete name thing without anybody telling him. And he could say whatever he wanted, didn't mean Faith would just believe it.

Dean seemed to realize that.

"Faith, this is Castiel. He is an angel."

An angel?

She stared at the figure before her.

Yes, she had heard that angels possessed humans but this guy was so... unlike anything she had imagined about angels.

Knowing that Dean was the deluxe housing version for an archangel and he was a hunter of all things supernatural, Faith had expected other angel vessels to also be more hunter-like, or perhaps the military or law enforcement type - in other words, people who kicked ass professionally.

This guy looked like he belonged in an office.

The angel looked Dean over.

"It took me considerable time to find you. You should not be in this dimension."

Dean shook his head. "Yeah Cas, I should be in this dimension."

He shrugged the flannel off, holding his right hand out to the angel.

# #

Castiel took a step away from him once he recognized what he was seeing.

"This has been lost. It was thought that it was destroyed in the first war against Lucifer."

He knew better than to touch it. With the latest events it was better to play it safe.

"You know it? Do you know how it works?"

The angel didn't move. "It is yours, so it was never used. The Enochian makes Winchester's Glove a weapon against non-corporeals. Touching a demon while wearing it rips the demon out of their host."

Dean understood perfectly. Non-corporeals: demons, the few ghosts who possessed people and, from the way Cas acted, angels.

Faith didn't seem to see the big deal behind it, but in this dimension demons were totally corporeal.

When they killed a demon they actually killed a demon, not the poor S.O.B. who had been used as a meatsuit as well  
  
Dean took that information and went in the direction they had planned, totally ignoring the people following him. They still had to find the one who wanted to destroy this world.

# #

Cas stared at the bound being before them.

She had the clear other-worldliness that marked her as Not-Human but didn't feel like something the Slayers would be fighting for. 

"It is Azrael." The angel had practically whispered this sentence, stuck between being riveted by her being there and appalled by her condition. "Azrael, Angel of Death."

Faith looked at the lean female form from a new perspective. "So this is... Death."

"No, this isn't Death. I met Death," came Dean’s answer.

Castiel watched his sister and tried to gauge her metaphysical status. "Azrael is the Angel of Death, she is neither Death nor a Reaper. She hears the prayers of people while they die and can cross into hell to rescue a deserving soul who truly repented."

With Azrael at their side it would have been easy to get Dean out of hell before he broke the first seal.

Had somebody captured and bound her here for that reason, to force the apocalypse on them, or was it something else?

Like a few other angels, humans had wrongly named her an archangel. This wasn't the case, but her task in heaven still gave her a special role. She shared this odd placing with Jehudiel, Uriel, Barachiel, Jerahmeel, Raguel and Metatron. Not archangels, but still higher than other angels, and in questions concerning their specialties, even higher than archangels.

To see her here explained a few things about the moves in the war against the demons other than just the conspiracy.

Who would dare to imprison and bind her? 

The markings were even more appalling.

Somebody had put bastardized Enochian sigils on the vessel’s body. It forced the angel to stay in the vessel and stopped her from using her powers at the same time.

Castiel couldn't help her, the sigils prevented helpful interaction.

"Azrael, who did this?" he addressed her clearly, but carefully. 

The female angel opened her eyes, but needed some time to focus on the other.

"Abbadon," came her whisper and both Cas and Dean froze at that info. 

Why would he do that, what would he get out of keeping her here?

"He was so angry about father, the humans and their ignorance, the way it all played out. He thought if he made sure that the apocalypse happened, the human race would destroy themselves one way or another, it wouldn't even matter which side would win. It would prove the experiment of humanity was a failure and father would have made a mistake."

Like Cas already reflected, Azrael could have gotten Dean out of hell in no time at all. After the first seal had been broken there hadn't been any reason to keep her contained.

Dean thought back to what he knew about Abbadon: One of the princes of hell, a general of destruction. Hadn't been very active in the last few centuries. According to water-cooler conversation in hell , he had been otherwise occupied, a personal project. The denizens highly anticipated his coming back to active duty.

"Sorry, but who is this Abbadon ? I know the name sounds familiar," asked the Wiccan.

"In the war , before Lucifer was cast down for rebelling, some angels took his side.

They were cast out with him. Abbadon was one of them."

An angel

It explained why the IWC hadn't been able to do anything against him, in this dimension there was no holy oil and the only angel sword on their side was the one Cas had with him.

And with Azrael bound in her own vessel

Dean hesitated.

He had an idea but would it really work?

# #

Azrael looked up when she saw the human kneeling before her.

He held his gloved right hand up so that she could see it, but kept it at a safe distance.

"I don't know if it will work, but we can try."

She nodded, knowing this was her best chance and steeled herself against the pain. 

The human would rip her grace out of her vessel through the bindings.

If it worked she was free and could go on to heaven. If it didn't, then they would have to see what happened with her grace. Perhaps she would die, but it would still be better than this existence, being unable to do the work her father had created her for.

Michael's vessel laid his gloved hand on her shoulder, cradling her form carefully with the other.

Whatever happened now would mean the end of her suffering.

"Thank you."

# #

"Close your eyes"

Faith followed the order immediately but saw gleaming light through her eyelids.

After everything was dark she opened her eyes again.

A quick look to her slayers made clear that everybody had followed the order.

She wouldn't have wanted to actually see the eyes burning out of somebody’s skull. 

The body of Azrael was still and lifeless.

"Did it work?"

Castiel held his head to the side, concentrating on something they could neither hear nor see.

"She returned to heaven. After some time to heal, she will be as powerful as before."

Not only was this good for Azrael, this was proof that they could win this.

They just needed to sneak Dean near enough to Abbadon and with one touch the danger would be over.

"Cas, if I touch Abbadon and force him out of his meatsuit, can you force his grace in the right direction or will he be able to stay here as a non-corporeal entity till he finds another vessel?"

The other man thought about it for a moment.

"There are no vessels in this dimension. I will take his grace to heaven the moment you extract him."

# #

In hindsight the battle had been anti-climactic.

Something to do with the fact that a mere touch was enough to end this.

For the humans it ended with a spectacular lightshow even through their closed eyes and after everything was settled, both angels were gone. They were just left with the highly traumatized human who had been Abbadon’s vessel.

The IWC would look after him, do whatever they could to help him acclimatize to this strange culture and century. Or if he couldn't do that, find him a place ~~~~ where he could live as near to his heritage as possible. With the majority of dimensions available to them, finding something suitable should not be such a problem.

Azrael had released the soul of her vessel centuries ago, there had been no need for both of them to endure this.

Sad as it was for the human, it reduced their duties to body removal, a time honored tradition and specialty of the IWC, both during and before the reign of Travers over the old council.

# #

"So."

"So."

"Back to your war?"

"Yes, back to the war on the home front."

"You know you are always welcome to come back. Red is dying to get more info on your monsters and kinds of magic."

A hesitant shrug. "Nah. I have things to do.

Cas hopes that when he brings me up to heaven with the glove, Raphael and the other angels will have to accept that this was the plan all along.

And even if they don't, that glove is a powerful weapon against angels on earth. They will think twice about messing with my brother and me with that thing around."

A grin.

Dean slipped his glove on and held on to Castiel with the other hand.

One second later , both were gone.

Just her luck: Great guy, wrong place, wrong time.


End file.
